


Conundrums Like These

by YellowDistress



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Oneshot, Peter Parker Whump, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Unreliable Narrator Sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-19 12:38:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18969451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowDistress/pseuds/YellowDistress
Summary: It is a dark room, to Peter.





	Conundrums Like These

**Author's Note:**

> This was just an experimental writing thing I've had in my notes. I wanted to play around with unreliable narrators and stuff and this was more of practice writing. I wasn't going to post but I decided, why not? Let me know what you think!

Peter was afraid of the dark and he accepted it as truth.

 

People would always say ‘it’s not the dark, it’s what’s in it’. That wasn’t the case, and he didn’t appreciate the analyzation of what was going on inside his own head. He was fairly certain of what he was afraid of. He was afraid of the vastness – what the darkness lacked, not what it had within it. He feared that emptiness, that void – being crushed under buildings or dragged under water. Peter had been afraid of the dark ever since he could remember – he still slept with his computer light blaring into the night. Breaking the corners of the room and the shadows, tearing them down. Peter didn’t want to not know – he wanted to know the crevices, and he wanted them to exist. They didn’t exist in the darkness.

 

But it was helpful, with hiding things – specifically the things he wasn’t so good at letting others know. And the world sometimes caved in like that, when he realized he was Spider-Man and people couldn’t hear about the woman last week who he had found already dead – and he couldn’t stop it. Or the man who had been hit by the car, because Peter had only been able to push two people out of the way and he was the third. A third. A simple one out of three, and he was dead. Peter saw his obituary, he was a father of five. The darkness hid that pressure, way deep down, beneath burning things – things that were hot, too hot, and sometimes it shifted into something completely different. Peter didn’t know.

 

Fifteen. Fifteen seemed awfully young to see a lot of that stuff – and Tuesday night was a bad night, to be alone and empty – in his room at two in the morning – and Aunt May was gone, out of town, with her friends and she deserved to rest. Peter found comfort in the depths of his closet, knees pulled to his chest – he wasn’t afraid of the dark then, it had welcomed him, but he knew when the lull lagged behind too far, he would be scared again and wouldn’t know what to do. Sometimes he was terribly tired, among school, patrols, and the internship that had recently turned into an actual internship. He had been gifted a certificate and _everything_. There was something wrong with not being grateful, he should have – right. It was the thought most kids like himself had. Society, someone higher had handed him a gift and he was looking at it like it was a burden when it wasn’t. He was learning so much.

 

_Blue shoes – blue shoes – blue shoes – blue shoes –_

_“Sometimes people just…you know, people kill people sometimes. Can’t always stop it.”_

_Red – blue lights – blue shoes –_

_Her face._

Peter knew sometimes people killed people, a person had killed his uncle in a silent morning hour, one of the few times New York had gone to sleep just to minimize the witnesses. Because the innerworkings, the liars, and the cheats had made it that way, and the lady with the blue shoes – Tuesday night – she had…Not gone home, and one shoe was hanging halfway off. Her purse was gone – her eyes staring blankly into the night and the worst part was, there weren’t any stars because the light polluted everything and so she had to die looking at nothing. Peter wasn’t sure if he could imagine anything worse. Maybe dying looking into the eyes of one’s killer.

 

He had heard the gunshot, familiar – like Uncle Ben.

 

It had been illuminated, but there it was dark. The blood had splattered into his mask, onto his hands, he had tried to stop the mess and he couldn’t, and it had seeped into his gloves, into the fabric, onto his skin, not really – the gloves were made to resist it – but he could feel the warmth as tears streamed his face and snot ran thickly. Peter’s chest stuttered, and his mouth felt full of saliva as he let out a weakened sob, and he wanted to go to sleep, but he couldn’t rest. A spray of blood over the alley and Peter was right there, he could have stopped it, but he hadn’t reacted quickly enough and –

 

The closet door opened, and Peter wasn’t met with light, but more darkness from his unlit bedroom. His senses didn’t scream – the figure was familiar – and Peter was too tired to be confused, and he wondered briefly if he was dreaming in his exhaustion. The person kneeled, came closer. A hand found his arm, but the other hand basically shoved a napkin into his nose and ordered bluntly, in a business tone almost, “Blow.”

 

If Peter were in a better state of mind, he might have laughed at the fact that **_the_** Tony Stark was pressing a tissue to his face, forcing him to blow his nose in the silence of an apartment that Peter wasn’t sure about who let him in or why. Maybe he had been there a while – it seemed – unreliable if his memory served, Tony might have already been there when he arrived. Maybe that was why water was pushed into his hands, the glass then lifted to his lips. Then something was slipped into his palm.

 

“Take that, you’ll calm down.”

 

Peter had half a mind to question what it was. Aunt May would be mad if she knew he was giving him something prescription. Peter’s mind wasn’t so foggy now – with a clear nose, but he was still breathing through a gaped mouth. He couldn’t see Mister Stark’s face – he couldn’t even ask how he had come out of shock, if he was still in shock. But then he was taking the pill and a hand was feeling his face – before Mister Stark muttered, “Did you take off your mask in front of them?”

 

“Hm?”

 

“Your mask. There’s – well, there’s stuff on your face and in your hair, did you take off your mask?”

 

_Stuff = Blood._

 

“I don’t remember – did I? Oh God, what if – did the cops – “

 

A sigh, how had he known? Peter couldn’t see a thing – but then again…If Mister Stark had been there when he had arrived then – no. no. no. He couldn’t remember any of it. Not correctly anyway – gunshot, spray, ripping off the mask and her – her neck, Peter gagged, and Mister Stark grabbed the back of his head, his hair, and he didn’t pull hard, just enough to grab his attention as the order came sharply, “Don’t do that. I can deal with a lot, but vomit is a line.”

 

Right, right, hold back.

 

Peter’s fingers, and the phantoms behind them, he grabbed on, latched in front of him into a shirt – fabric and he dug in, tried to hold on to whatever he could. He inhaled – then all at once his brain set ablaze, and he tried not to burn down. His lower lip trembled, and he was glad Mister Stark couldn’t see him crying, but he couldn’t think straight – he couldn’t even remember if he was really at home in the apartment, if he had ever come home – had he come home?

 

“She died.”

 

“She did.”

 

Another piece of tissue slid across his face haphazardly. Without much thought, and he was being pulled to his feet, out into the dark bedroom, the dark hallway, but the bathroom was bright and when he looked in the mirror, he saw a blood smeared face, and red – his hair was clumpy – well, it wasn’t so red now, it was brown and Mister Stark dunked his head into the sink. Under the running water. Peter didn’t think they were quite there yet, they still hadn’t hugged – and his certificate was a formality, but there they were – Mister Stark was washing his hair – had probably just given him some meds that were definitely not over the counter.

What was he meant to do with the sight of a woman dying in front of him? What was he meant to do with it? And then his head wasn’t under water anymore, a towel was ruffled over his hair, and the darkness came back – hallway – bedroom – bed. Peter hit the mattress rather hard, it creaked – and he fell inside of himself as the blanket was pulled to his neck and the figure – Mister Stark, tucked the edges, extra – and he didn’t have to, but he had. Because he cared and Peter was speaking without thinking and he wondered if it was the shock.

 

“Why do you pretend that you’re not nice?”

 

Mister Stark didn’t reply and Peter pushed, maybe harshly – he didn’t know, but it sounded more quiet than anything, not mean, “You’re a nice person, Mister Stark…you didn’t – y’know, I could’ve – “

 

“I’m going to stop you there,” The man interrupted, Peter’s mouth snapped shut, “You could’ve? No…kid, tonight was – that was bullshit. What those assholes did, was bullshit, and you had to watch, and I’m sorry.”

 

Mister Stark was saying more, but the pillow was eating his alive – and it smelled like his own shampoo there, and Peter rolled over a bit, and Mister Stark’s voice was muffled, an ocean, wave slamming into the side of his head over and over again. Peter gulped the water into his lungs, and he didn’t realize he was crying until another tissue was being pressed to his face and there was another order for him to blow his nose, and Peter couldn’t see – it was dark…but the mattress shifted, Mister Stark sat down beside him, and Peter couldn’t see – he couldn’t see – he couldn’t –

 

“You want me to turn a light on then?”

 

Maybe he had been talking or thinking aloud and Peter inhaled, unreliable. He shook his head, hair matting to his forehead, damp and wetting the pillow, and he wondered if Mister Stark had washed his hair, because it was smelling stronger – the shampoo.

 

“Don’t…It’s okay…I know you’re there.”

 

Not something void – not some unknown thing in the night. Just Mister Stark and Peter’s confusion and a room of figuring things out. Peter swallowed, and he wasn’t crying anymore, if he was, it was drowned in sleep. Peter’s eyes drifted shut and he pretended he was going to remember in the morning.

 

…

 

_We all do this._


End file.
